Apple Case Study(Research): Data Analysis Of Apple Sales

Question

Task:This is an individual, written assessment, to be completed in report format. You are required to write around 3,000 words (+/- 10%), excluding title page, preliminaries, tables, figures, reference list and appendices. The report requires in-text referencing and a full reference list in APA style, with evidence that you have critically read and integrated a minimum of 20 suitable scholarly references.

The purpose of this assessment is to present the final report of the Professional Project you proposed in Assignment 1. This report should build upon both components of your Assessment 1 and it should be developed with the help of the tutor/co-ordinator feedback.

In order to successfully complete Assessment 2, you are required to carry out the investigation you have proposed in Assessment 1 and produce a professional research report that shows that you have followed through from finding a research question to answering that question and developing recommendations that arise from your findings.

Answer

Executive Summary
The main purpose of this Apple case study is to find the correlation between the sales of the products of a company and customer satisfaction levels. A case study on Apple Inc. will be done in this report and based on the data and research on Apple the aim of the research will be obtained. Two research questions will answer the objectives of the research, which are: the first one is that does customer satisfaction index affects the sale of the Apple products. The second one would be if there is any relation between customer satisfaction and the sales of the product affected by it.

The research will be done by looking into various sources which will include the company’s website and other reference materials. The data, graphs, and charts thus obtained from the various sources will help in answering the research questions that are asked in this report.

Introduction
It is given in this apple case study that any company or organization that enters the market has some set of aim and beliefs which will make the company successful. The main aim of any company that enters the market is to gain lots of profits from the market and become the most successful company. But there are several ways and processes which helps in the growth of the company and set up its place in the market. One of the main factor which decides the success of the company is the satisfaction of its customers from the service and the products provided by the company. The aim of this report is to analyze the importance of customer satisfaction in the sales of the products of the company. The case study for research on this topic will be done on the Apple Inc., the technology giant of this era and how loyal and trustworthy it is to the customers and did the customer's trust and satisfaction helped in the growth of this company (Hult et al. 2019).

The case study of Apply is chosen for this report because of many reasons, one of which is the high sales of Apple products. The products provided by Apple are very expensive as compared to its competitors, despite it the sales of the products rises every year and all the technology and the facilities provided by the company are accepted by the customers. Other competitive brands are also manufacturing the same types of devices with the same features, some even providing more features than Apple products, so what is it that makes this company the most chosen one over the others. Is it because of the trust of the customers and their loyalty to the brand or is there something that other companies cannot see. This apple case study will give a deep insight into the factors due to which it is the most chosen and trusted company for the customers (Beckers et al. 2018).

Literature Review
Customer satisfaction is very important for the growth and the development of any company or organization. It has been seen that the quality and the services provided by the companies have been influenced by the satisfaction of their customers. The upgrade and new innovations in technology have been a result of the customers' satisfaction and acceptance. If the customers are not satisfied with the product range of the company and the qualities that they provide, then the company can lose its customer base and that will decide the company's place in the market.

Anything that the company produces and sells depends on the acceptance of the user base and the market. Doesn’t matter how important and innovative a product is, it will only be successful if it is accepted by the customers and the consumers (Agnihotri et al. 2016).

It is given in this apple case study that the company works according to the needs and the wants of the customers, the main purpose of all the companies is to satisfy their customers in all aspects whether it’s the products, the quality of the products, the support to the customers and the reviews of the customers. Company satisfaction is not limited to producing just the right product, it also varies in various aspects. Customer care is one of those, the work of the customer care department of any company is to provide total guidance and support to their customers in terms of solving their queries related to the products and another customer related service provided by the company (Lim et al. 2019).

The customer review is also an important part of the customer satisfaction for the company, taking advice and the reviews of the products by the company from the customer is a good way of communicating with the customers and determining their needs. If the customers have a good experience with any company and the services provided to them are very satisfactory and problem-solving, then the company will have a loyal customer base. A loyal customer base can only be developed by listening to the customers and once it is developed, the consumers will only trust the products from the company even if they charge more for everything as compared to the other competitors (Martinaityte et al. 2019)

Research Aim and Questions
The aim of the research is to find out whether customer satisfaction is an important factor which decides the growth of the company, and whether the increase in the sales of the product of the company is decided by it.

The research questions that will give a proper answer to the aim of the report is:

• What is the relation between customer satisfaction and product sale?
• What is the relation between customer satisfaction and product sale?

Methodology
Data Collection: The main aim of this apple case study is to determine how the customer satisfaction level affects the sales of the products of the company. It is a secondary data analysis report and the data provided here will be the factual data collected from various sources which also includes the official website of the Apple Inc. The main vision of Apple Inc. according to Steve Jobs was that the company will solely focus on its customer base first and will then work towards the technology of the product. Apple is still successfully following these steps and has managed to build a huge user base or a fan base due to their vision.

If data from the previous 11 years is to be looked at, then Apple Inc. and its products have topped the market in the customer satisfaction ratings till now. According to the ACSI ratings, Apple has scored 83 in 2018 and the similar score in 2017 too, which is the top score as compared to its other competitive brands. Whether it is the handy devices like the smartphone and laptops or if it is the other devices like desktops, Apple is ranked at the top as compared to others in the customer satisfaction rate. Apple also provides the feedback facility to its customers and works on the genuine feedbacks too. As soon as a customer purchases an Apple device, they get a notification to rate the product, and how satisfactory the product is and would they like to purchase Apple products in the future too. All these feedbacks and details are not just plain words, the company works in these details too and makes sure that the customer feels validated and the communication between the customer and the company remains intact (Wildemuth, 2016).

Data Analysis: This apple case study collects data using the method of quantitative data analysis, the data is collected from various sources, all of which are described in the above paragraph. The data here will be analyzed using the correlation technique, this technique will help in analyzing the relationship between customer satisfaction and the dependence of the sale of the products in it. The data analysis for this report will be done on the basis of raw data that is available publically on many websites and books. The tables and charts describe the comparison between the customer satisfaction rating and the sales of the product. The basis of the rating of the Apple will be according to the ACSI ranking, this ranking is done on the basis of the customer satisfaction of a particular product and Apple tops this ranking every year since past 11 years.

The research for this apple case study will conduct various statistical analysis techniques to critically analyze the ways in which the customer satisfaction index can be measured and the trust and dependence of the customers for the product can be looked into. These techniques included are Conjoint analysis, TURF analysis, GAP analysis, MaxDiff analysis, and Cross tabulation. All of these techniques are the different types of ways to find a common result which is the customer satisfaction index (Yuan et al. 2015).

According to the data analysis of Apple sales and customer satisfaction collected in the last 11 years, it can easily be noticed that there has been a dramatic change in Apple’s sales business. The fact that the sales have seen a rise at a very high rate shows that they are doing well in the customer satisfaction front. The sales that were around 1.4 million in 2007 have risen to more than 216 million by 2018. The growth in sales is highly commendable, knowing that Apple has sold approximately one billion iPhones worldwide in this 11-year period. It is no surprise that the iPhone sales have contributed to about 70 % of Apple’s entire revenue, making the company almost around 61 Billion U.S dollars. Increase in sales is the easiest way to judge consumer satisfaction and the fact that this success has made it possible for Apple to rank among the most valuable brands in the world, speaks volumes about their strategy. The reason behind Apple’s success is brand loyalty which only can be explained by putting forth the fact that Apple has a strong consumer satisfaction game, giving public what they want at the same time providing them with innovative inventions.

According to the ACSI index, Apple started in 2007 with a customer satisfaction index of 79% itself, but has seen nothing but a constant rise up to 2013, with 87%. However, a minute fall in satisfaction is noticed, from 87 to 83% throughout the years 2014-2018, the sales though do not seem to be majorly affected by it.

Findings and Analysis
Correlation Analysis: The data given in this apple case study is used to analyze customer satisfaction and the product sales for Apple is based on the finding since the past 11 years. The Apple products have been placed at the top in the ranking of their customer satisfaction levels and the sales of their products. Various sources including the official website of Apple and other third-party comparison websites have confirmed this statistical data and thus ranked the Apple at the top of the table as compared to its competitors. The basis of the customer satisfaction score is done by the ACSI rankings, which is the unit used all over to rank the products and the companies according to their performance in customer satisfaction and Apple tops this list with the score of 83 (Hill and Brierley, 2017).

Conjoint Analysis: This method of analysis given in this apple case study looks into the ways and the types of products that the customer's need. It looks into the various factors such as the cost of the product and if the cost of that product inclines with the features that it provides. It also focuses on the ways and the benefits that were provided to the customers and how these benefits and services helped in the good or bad promotion of the product. This method is now widely used to promote a product, decide the pricing of the product and the launching of the product as well (Ben-Akiva et al. 2019).

TURF Analysis: The full form of TURF is Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency, this method looks into the deep understanding and the needs of the people and accepts the responsibility for the various products and services launched together. The services combined together and the interest of the customers in that particular area lets the company decide the fate of the products. The data is collected from the customers and the unduplicated data and the customer response is extracted (Pattanayak et al. 2016).

GAP Analysis: Before the launch of any product, a company gives some specific details on the performance of the product and how it will benefit its users. So, the GAP analysis is used to check the before and after the performance of any product, this is obviously done by using the consumer’s support as well. The requirement of this process is to improve the quality and the standard of the product of any company and to clear and fix the errors (if any) of the product or the services.

MaxDiff Analysis: This analysis method is quite similar to the conjoint analysis and the two could be confused easily as they have many similar properties. The basic work of the MaxDiff analysis is to focus on the preference of the customer for the particular product that they need. The focus can be on various factors like the cost of the product, functions of the product, technological advancement in the product and the preference of the brand for the product.

Cross Tabulation Analysis: As the name suggests, the cross tabulation is the easiest and the convenient way to analyze the details and the features of the products by comparison in two or more categories. Any two product or the features will be compared in the form of a table and in this way it will be very easy to compare the two or more and thus determine the most useful and easy approach (Apenes Solem, 2016).

Discussion: The content in the discussion section of this apple case study will contain all the information from the literature part and the result section of the report. All the analysis methods and the result derived from these analyses will be compared and then a conclusion of the report will be provided at the end of the report. The actual aim of the report is to find out the relation between customer satisfaction and how it influences the sales of the product of the company. The previous secondary analysis done on this report has been done on the same subject only.

Customer satisfaction is the most important need for the growth and development of the company.
The report discusses and provides many ways which prove that the growth and success of any company directly depend on the customer satisfaction level of the company. The fact that Apple stayed on the top of the customer satisfaction ranking and similarly at the top of the most successful business as compared to its competitors, proves that the customer satisfaction indeed does help in the growth and development of a company. Many analysis methods have been provided in the above report which provides information about the impact of customer satisfaction on a company.

Conclusion
Addressing Aims and Research Questions: The aim of this apple case study is to point out that whether the satisfaction of the customers from a certain product of a company is the reason for the success and growth of the company. This has been proved in the report above by many critical analysis methods and from various sources of information. The research material that was used to come out to the conclusion that it is very important to satisfy the customers through the products and its services. The customer base is the only people who will buy from the company and the dissatisfaction of them will lead to the obvious failure of the company. The report clearly mentions the various analytical methods that were used in the determination of the importance of consumer trust and satisfaction for a company. It is important for the company to engage in communication with the customers through whatever means possible. This indicates that the company is really willing to put in more efforts that will help in the development of the product and provide better and reasonable features to the customers.

Exactly like the case in Apple Inc., though the price value of the Apple products is more as compared to its other competitors it still is one of the most recognized and loved the brand for the maximum customer base. The research question was whether customer satisfaction is an important aspect in terms of the growth of the company, this question is answered in this report. And the conclusion that is derived from it is that customer satisfaction is really the most important factor responsible for the development and growth of the company (Tzoumaka et al. 2016).

Limitations: The limitation of this apple case study is the ever-changing data and results. The results and findings in this report from various sources suggest that Apple Inc. is the topmost brand in electronics. However, there could be various other means by which the growth and the development of the company can be measured. This report is meant to find the company and its growth with respect to the number of positive feedback and recommendations from the customer base. The satisfaction of the customers is the key point in this report and the rank of the company is determined by that. Also, the factual data and the comparative data mentioned here can change in the future with big or less margin, so this report is time-bound and is limited only for this particular period of time. The results and the findings could stay accurate or change over time as well.

Recommendation
The most important recommendation for the report could be that although Apple Inc. gets full marks for its customer satisfaction factor, it should still look into other aspects as well. There is a big customer base that supports the changes and updates in the features of the products from Apple. But there are a lot more other people and consumers who think that Apple is going out of its own vision and it is not so much customer friendly as it used to be. Which means that a little number of customers are not satisfied with the way the company deals with them, although this number is very low it can grow up to a sizeable amount. This could cause a lot of problems in the future; many people recommend that the price of the products from the company should get down a little which can increase its customer base. But this is not important as the facility and the features provided by the company makes the amount of the product worth it and people accept and respect that.

The company is becoming more like a fashion brand rather than a technology giant, and due to which a lot of Apple products were faulty at times which included a smartphone that was cracked from the middle. These types of news are dangerous for the company and they should make sure that every product that comes out of the facility is up to date and gives the best performance. It is not possible for any company to satisfy every customer; therefore, the company should look at the requirements and the needs of the majority of the people rather than focusing on every customer. The launch of new apple features was also not well appreciated by some of the customer base, an example of which is the ear pods. This however does revolutionize the smartphones and keeps them a step closer to the new innovations and technology. So, it is given in this apple case study that along with the new improvements and innovations in technology and fashion trends, the company should also focus on its customer base and make sure that the customers trust them and make them the champion of the customer satisfaction once again for the 12th year. Apple case study assignments are being prepared by our management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable online assignment help service.

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